Let's start a discussion about destroying gush based mentor decks!

@diophan That all makes sense... I was just wondering. I feel like in general, and it might not be in this case, that people kinda underthink having more of the same cards you're already running , just hidden in the sideboard. Since those cards are already good enough to be in the deck in the first place, it stands to reason that optimal might just be different ratios of those already very powerful cards... anyway.

I also love how baby Jace has turned into this guy's name... how great is that? And a great card.

PS, I'm not sure if you've tried this, or if your mana base is set for it, but I run a weird Oath variant, and my SB for Shops is Energy Flux. If you already know this than pardon the waste of time, but this card is insane against anything Muddy. I would venture to say that the vast majority of Shops build, in the vast majority of game states, simply cannot win with this thing on the table. As a heuristic, when I'm playing against Shops, I choose to read the text on that card as saying... "You win the game." The big problem here being actually landing it on the table.

@Topical_Island Casting energy flux has been nearly impossible for me most of the time. Between spheres, tangles, wastes and revokers for my moxen, play a 3cc non creature at sorcery speed is most of the time an illusion. And I lost one match years ago when I successfully could play it, since my opponent could play a smokestack into it and reset the play 3 or 4 turns later, keeping a welder in play. It was really sad. Not to speak that if mud player has tolarian, flux only does half the work.

I will contribute my thoughts here. I’ve been digging around for cards that attack the shared strategy of Gush / Mentor decks, namely, the Gush card/mana engine and the horizonally-growing win condition. Given that Gush is now King of the Metagame, my goal here is to consider whether we can cobble together a deck that has nothing but silver bullets for Gush while still having game against other decks. Is that possible?

Root Maze

EFFECT ON GUSH / MENTOR DECKS

This little gem was a favorite of mine when I was playing Christmas Beatings. It was a distant third to Null Rod and Chalice when it came to hating out power on the play (I don’t own much power and typically run unpowered decks). But, we lost Chalice. Is Root Maze worth another look?

Consider how it works against Gush. It doesn’t stop them from drawing cards, but it does stop them from tapping UU, returning the islands, and replaying one for W. In my (admittedly anecdotal) experience, that’s a critical play for a Gush-Mentor deck because it gets them the 3 mana they need to deploy Mentor. Essentially, this turns off the mana-generation aspect of Gush.

EFFECT ON OTHER DECKS

On the play against Dredge or Shops, Root Maze does slow them down a little bit, but not much. It just recaptures the tempo you use up playing it. Probably sideboarded out there in favor of hate, which is kind of nice; you’ll have built-in sideboard slots.

Against storm or combo decks, this card can also be pretty devastating. Any deck that wants to do a lot of things on a big turn gets hosed.

Against Oath, however, Root Maze seems pretty crappy.

Chains of Mephistopheles / Spirit of the Labyrinth

EFFECT ON GUSH / MENTOR DECKS

People have posted on The Drain about having a lot of success with Chains. It answers the second half of the Gush equation, negating the deck’s ability to draw extra cards at all. Just like Root Maze turns off the mana-generation side of Gush, this turns off the card draw – and nukes the cantrips as well.

Spirit is almost certainly worse, but it has two things going for it: (1) It’s a win condition in a deck that probably needs lots of redundant and dense win conditions since it won’t be drawing lots of cards; and (2) It’s not a billion dollars in cash to buy.

EFFECT ON OTHER DECKS

Any blue deck will kill your Spirit or try to counter your Chains, one would think. Other decks will ignore it, making it a dead slot. Since it doesn’t hit tutors, even a heavy combo deck probably just ignores these cards entirely.

These cards seem like just weaker versions of what Shops is trying, and failing, to do against Gush.

Declaration in Stone / Echoing Truth / Echoing Decay / Bile Blight

EFFECT ON GUSH / MENTOR DECKS

Declaration is a new card, and it’s expensive compared to STP, but it stops either Mentor or its tokens, but not both. Gush, with its low land count, is probably ill-equipped to take advantage of the Clue token consolation prizes, at least until the late game.

Echoing Truth deals with tokens, but not Mentor itself. Echoing Decay SOMETIMES deals with them, but a single Prowess trigger can save the Mentor and multiple triggers ave the dorks.

Bile Blight is basically a stronger version of Decay, and at -3/-3 might actually be strong enough that it’s not easy for Gush to Prowess it’s way out of the removal.

I suspect all of these cards are just weaker than Staitcaster, but they open up the option of not playing UR..

EFFECT ON OTHER DECKS

Declaration and Truth are fine cards against many different decks. The problem, as I see it, is that giving decks with spare mana Clue tokens is really bad. Decay and Blight are fine choices against lists with creatures, but they’re terrible against non-creature decks. So... I dunno.

I will contribute my thoughts here. I’ve been digging around for cards that attack the shared strategy of Gush / Mentor decks, namely, the Gush card/mana engine and the horizonally-growing win condition. Given that Gush is now King of the Metagame, my goal here is to consider whether we can cobble together a deck that has nothing but silver bullets for Gush while still having game against other decks. Is that possible?

Root Maze

EFFECT ON GUSH / MENTOR DECKS

This little gem was a favorite of mine when I was playing Christmas Beatings. It was a distant third to Null Rod and Chalice when it came to hating out power on the play (I don’t own much power and typically run unpowered decks). But, we lost Chalice. Is Root Maze worth another look?

Consider how it works against Gush. It doesn’t stop them from drawing cards, but it does stop them from tapping UU, returning the islands, and replaying one for W. In my (admittedly anecdotal) experience, that’s a critical play for a Gush-Mentor deck because it gets them the 3 mana they need to deploy Mentor. Essentially, this turns off the mana-generation aspect of Gush.

EFFECT ON OTHER DECKS

On the play against Dredge or Shops, Root Maze does slow them down a little bit, but not much. It just recaptures the tempo you use up playing it. Probably sideboarded out there in favor of hate, which is kind of nice; you’ll have built-in sideboard slots.

Against storm or combo decks, this card can also be pretty devastating. Any deck that wants to do a lot of things on a big turn gets hosed.

Against Oath, however, Root Maze seems pretty crappy.

Chains of Mephistopheles / Spirit of the Labyrinth

EFFECT ON GUSH / MENTOR DECKS

People have posted on The Drain about having a lot of success with Chains. It answers the second half of the Gush equation, negating the deck’s ability to draw extra cards at all. Just like Root Maze turns off the mana-generation side of Gush, this turns off the card draw – and nukes the cantrips as well.

Spirit is almost certainly worse, but it has two things going for it: (1) It’s a win condition in a deck that probably needs lots of redundant and dense win conditions since it won’t be drawing lots of cards; and (2) It’s not a billion dollars in cash to buy.

EFFECT ON OTHER DECKS

Any blue deck will kill your Spirit or try to counter your Chains, one would think. Other decks will ignore it, making it a dead slot. Since it doesn’t hit tutors, even a heavy combo deck probably just ignores these cards entirely.

These cards seem like just weaker versions of what Shops is trying, and failing, to do against Gush.

Declaration in Stone / Echoing Truth / Echoing Decay / Bile Blight

EFFECT ON GUSH / MENTOR DECKS

Declaration is a new card, and it’s expensive compared to STP, but it stops either Mentor or its tokens, but not both. Gush, with its low land count, is probably ill-equipped to take advantage of the Clue token consolation prizes, at least until the late game.

Echoing Truth deals with tokens, but not Mentor itself. Echoing Decay SOMETIMES deals with them, but a single Prowess trigger can save the Mentor and multiple triggers ave the dorks.

Bile Blight is basically a stronger version of Decay, and at -3/-3 might actually be strong enough that it’s not easy for Gush to Prowess it’s way out of the removal.

I suspect all of these cards are just weaker than Staitcaster, but they open up the option of not playing UR..

EFFECT ON OTHER DECKS

Declaration and Truth are fine cards against many different decks. The problem, as I see it, is that giving decks with spare mana Clue tokens is really bad. Decay and Blight are fine choices against lists with creatures, but they’re terrible against non-creature decks. So... I dunno.

I've already achieved this with my 5-c human build. I've been pulverizing mentor left and right with it using Thalia, Scab-Clan Berserker, Mantis Rider and Izzet Statiscaster along with Grand Abolisher to prevent combat tricks. The list has been def more than 50% vs. Mentor and likely closer to 60 or 65% and gets even better based on play skill.

@gkraigher I've been playing Ankh in an aggressive Tiny-Robots style shops list online. It's been good enough to continue testing, but it hasn't felt like a silver bullet. A few games it's stopped an opponent from going crazy with a Fastbond or a Crucible (but neither of those cards are in a traditional Gush Mentor deck).

Usually a turn 1 Ankh deals something like 6-10 damage, which isn't bad, but isn't necessarily more than a different aggressive 2 drop (Legionnaire?) would have done. I suspect 2x Ankh on turn 1 is a kill, but I haven't had that happen yet.

Unfortunately it's worse than another Creature or Sphere as a mid/lategame draw

@gkraigher I've played some games with Wire and some games without ... I've had trouble figuring out the right ratio of threats-to-lock pieces in the Robots deck. I don't feel comfortable yet saying one build is better than another